Tattoo the Wicked Cross

by Salas, Floyd;

  When they entered a big wooden building next to the dairy, its darkness and the strange strong smells of horseflesh, hay, and manure were too overwhelming for any type of reflection, and he had trouble just following Dominic about. But when Dominic grabbed a halter off a hook and threw open a stall door and an old horse lifted its bony head out of a hay trough and glared at them with one filmed eye, that eye reminded him of the Buzzer.

  “You better watch how I do this,” Dominic said and threw a halter over its head, laughed at Aaron’s timid distance, and led the horse to an old wagon, with an iron-plated bed, fenced by a short plank railing.

  “You gotta learn how to do this yourself or I’ll fire yuh,” he said and chuckled again and hooked the halter to the wagon forks and hopped onto the wagon with a one-handed easy spring, saying, “Let’s go, daddy-o!”

  Aaron had to use both hands and two tries to get onto the wagon, and Dominic commented:

  “You’ll be making it quicker than that before the morning’s through,” and he clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and rippled the slack in the reins and started the old horse at a wooden-jointed clopping walk through the open doors of the building and onto the packed dirt of the yard.

  Aaron stepped backward and then forward on the wagon, with his arms outspread to keep from falling, too concerned with keeping his balance to worry, and although he wavered unsteadily, he kept his feet as the wagon cleared the dairy gate and turned onto the dirt road toward the main grounds.

  But once on the road, Dominic called out a loud “Hah!” and slapped the reins against the bony haunches of the horse, and it lunged into a trot, jerking the wagon after it, and Aaron threw himself forward, bending into a jackknife, hands slapping against the rusted metal to keep from falling on his face, then dropped back onto his butt with a plop, more startled than hurt.

  Dominic chuckled and peeked slyly down at him before Aaron caught the joke and saw himself: still scared, still surprised, but unhurt and safely seated, seated as stiffly as a doll, and he saw the humor in his comic fright, and began to laugh, and laughed for a full minute. He laughed until Dominic turned away with distaste at the hysteria in it.

  Yet the joke had relieved his feelings and he now, happily, saw things so much less clearly, and his buttocks cushioned the jolts of the wagon, and occasional giggles broke from his lips all along the road, past the fields, so easily and thankfully blurred by a simple recollection of his comic fright, past the struggling line of inmates on their way to work at the dairy, which the eruption of a giggle caused to blend into the landscape, and all the way to the paved road, at the bottom of the main hill, where the sight of the Buzzer and Rattler crossing the lawn from the compound killed the last giggle in his throat.

  “You’ll like the job, man,” Dominic said, noticing the approaching figures when Aaron stopped giggling, and he snapped the reins against the dry-hide haunches of the horse and hustled it up the hill.

  “Some guys get up at five in the morning to milk the cows. The rest of the guys have to be around the man all the time. We boss ourselves and don’t have to get up until the morning whistle, have fun reining the horse, have lots of free time,” Dominic said, and Aaron, to whom his chin was a massive whiskered stubble, heard him speak, saw the mouth shape the words, saw the pucker of the lips with “You’ll,” the tongue’s tip touch the square teeth with “like,” and the final compression of the mouth with “time,” and nodded politely in reply.

  But neither Dominic’s attempts to help him nor the compulsive attention he paid to the metallic clip-clop of the tired hooves on the pavement, to the creaking wooden frame and rattling plates of the wagon could relieve the anxiety that the appearance of the Buzzer had rekindled within him.

  Although Dominic kept trying. He talked as they passed the trade shops, the chapel, the gym, the mess hall, the library, and the office. He talked as he reined the horse around the office and into the gravel yard, crisscrossed by countless wagon tracks. He talked right up to the back door of the kitchen, where six large garbage cans awaited them on the concrete porch. He talked as he backed the horse, talked when the rear wagon wheels bumped the concrete, and talked when he hopped down, tilted a can, and rolled it next to the wagon bed.

  “The kitchen is one load in itself, man. After this, we’ll hit the rest of the main buildings, and then the compounds. Last, the officers’ cottages. Best of all there because they’re always half empty and light. Let you rein the horse then. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Aaron answered, jumping down to help him and seizing the garbage can handle in order to fight the wave of self-pity that Dominic’s concern produced in his chest. He ignored the pulpy odor of the spoiled food by refusing to turn his head, and he squeezed the handle so tightly that the heat of his hand warmed it.

  “One!… Two!… Threeeeee!” Dominic called out and Aaron, welcoming a task that required the combined efforts of both his body and mind, leaned, braced, heaved, and grunted, unconcerned by the sharp wet ring of the can’s bottom against his left palm, was proud as the ring caught on the wagon, proud of its screech against the iron plates as they shoved the can back, and flattered by Dominic’s fist of approval when he stepped back to tilt and roll another can toward the wagon.

  “You’re a bitch for yourself. Ain’t you?” Dominic said, after they had loaded the last can and begun the slow creaking pull across the crunching gravel.

  “I try.”

  “You do more than try. You do.” Dominic wiped his forehead. “Little man, iron hard. You’ll make it, dad. And you can quit worrying about the Buzzer ’cause you’re gonna make it. Hey! Don’t lean against those cans. You don’t need ’um. Stand like a boxer. Left foot forward. I know you can box. Bet on it. I bet.…”

  Dominic’s encouragement was offset by the Buzzer’s name, and his voice drifted into the background as the slow clop, creak, and grind of the horse and wagon began to pound out the passage of idle time and promise ages of monotony, in which each second would be crammed with images of the Buzzer and Barneyway; and an agitated Aaron, searching for some aid, remembered his advice to himself, and braced his arms against his thighs with sweating palms as he tried to concentrate.

  Mother! he thought, rocking with the wagon as it rounded the office.

  Mother! Mother! And rimless glasses microscoped pale-green eyes.

  MOTHER! spelled out in block letters in front of the library.

  Mother! Oh, Mother! recited like the beginning of a prayer as they passed the chapel.

  Mother-Mother! Mother-Mother! to the rhythm of the wagon sway and the hum of the metal-rimmed wheels on the asphalt when they started downhill and picked up speed.

  Mother-Mother! Mother-Mother! Mother-Mother! Mother-Mother! he recited until it became an internal chant which deadened all sound and curtailed all sight; and the world about him gave him no misery, the figures he saw had no significance, the boys sweeping sidewalks in front of the trade shops and the boys picking rubbish off the grounds and the boys in the field crews and in the dairy yards could have all exchanged places with each other and with all the objects of the landscape, with all the buildings, with all the trees, with all the fields, with all the hills, and—when the road dipped into a ravine—with the grassy walls of the ravine, with the clumps of short willow trees, and even with the blue sky, spotted now with tiny cloud puffs.

  Mother-Mother! Mother-Mother! Mother-Mother! Mother-Mother! he recited until they reached a dump at the end of the deep ravine, and he felt so good that he was eager to help Dominic tip, lift, and empty the cans down the slope of trash into the ditch. The work so warmed his body and occupied his mind and made him so energetic that he completed it too quickly, and Dominic had to stop him when he tilted a can of garbage.

  “Not those, man. We drop those off at the pig shed. Slop, man, that’ll turn out good bacon. Let’s rest now. Have a smoke.”

  Dominic hopped down from the wagon, offered Aaron a cigarette, lit one for himself, and squatted on his
haunches. He took deep drags of smoke and rested his arm on his thigh. His bicep flexed, stretched the rolled shirt sleeve into a tight band, and the blossomed rose of his tattoo impressed Aaron once more, and he squatted down, too, sensing that Dominic wanted to talk and “buddy up.”

  “How long you know Barneyway?” Dominic asked, watching Aaron carefully, as if he expected a lie and wanted to be able to detect it.

  “Three years,” Aaron answered, fatigue spreading through his limbs, expecting an unpleasant conversation, and positive that the one eye which stared at him, while the other squinted to shut out a pillar of smoke, was searching for a way to plot its next move. But the work and the chant had been effective: the extraordinary vision was gone and he didn’t feel overwhelmed by anxiety.

  “You guys good friends, huh?” Dominic asked, and the beauty mark seemed to contract with his intense contemplation.

  “He’s my best friend,” Aaron said. “We’re practically brothers. We’re cousins,” he added, lying, but it was an old lie and he felt justified in making it, for even the guys in the gang thought they were cousins.

  Smoke seeped slowly out of Dominic’s mouth with his next question.

  “On what side of your family? Your mother’s or your father’s?”

  He caught Aaron with an open mouth, for nobody had ever questioned the lie before, and he chuckled.

  “Cousins don’t ask other guys if they ‘know the little guy with the big eyes?’ or only know their cousins for three years,” he said and added:

  “But that’s okay, man. I know by the lie that you really like him. You must feel for him like a brother or you’d never try to make a cousin out of him.”

  “We have almost the same last name,” Aaron said, trying to salvage some of his lost face. “My name’s D’Aragon and his is Aragon, and his family’s from Colorado just like mine, and he even lives across the street, and he eats dinner with us all the time, and his family gives mine presents for Christmas, and so do we, and—”

  “You don’t have to justify it, man. Like I say, you must like the guy a whole lot or you’d never try to make a cousin out of him.”

  “He’s like a real brother. He spends most of his time at my house. He—”

  “I know. I know, maaan,” Dominic said, getting irritated, and he took several more drags on his cigarette without speaking, letting his irritation dissipate with the exhaled smoke.

  “Do you shave every day, Dominic?” Aaron asked, after the smoke had faded, trying to make up, and struck once again by how big Dominic looked sitting down.

  “On the outs I do. I been shaving since I was fourteen. You probably won’t start until you’re twenty or twenty-one.”

  “How come so late?” Aaron asked, hurt by Dominic’s proud comparison, trying to conceal his wounded feelings with another question, running his hand over his smooth cheeks.

  “Because you’re so undeveloped, man. You hardly have any hair on your legs. How are you going to start shaving before you’re twenty?”

  “Barneyway was like me only last year and he’s starting to shave now,” Aaron replied, forgetting Barneyway was an uncomfortable subject. “He gets a stubble on his chin about every three weeks.”

  “That’s about all the man he’s got in him,” Dominic said, standing, dropping the butt on the packed earth, grinding it out with a twist of his brogan. “Let’s move, dad.”

  “Barneyway’s no chicken,” Aaron retorted, using the wagon tongue as a step, but Dominic cracked the reins and startled the horse into a quick walk without answering.

  “Why ain’t Barneyway a man?” Aaron insisted, standing like a boxer, facing Dominic, rocking with the wagon, trying not to sound too demanding but determined to get an answer.

  “Oh, you’re gonna make me tell you, huh?” Dominic said and chuckled with such genuine humor that Aaron smiled, but Dominic added: “He just ain’t, man. That’s all.”

  “You can’t say that unless you got proof,” Aaron said, but he was afraid Dominic had proof, and an image of the Buzzer froze briefly, like a silent movie still, in his mind.

  “Nobody’s on trial, man. I don’t have to convict anybody. I can think any goddamned thing I want to, about anybody—you, too.”

  “What’d ya bring it up for, if you didn’t wantta talk about it then?”

  Dominic smoothed and evened the reins with elaborate motions and only allowed Aaron to see his profile as he spoke:

  “You’re a salty little guy, huh?”

  “I saw Barneyway choose a six-foot, twenty-year-old guy at a beach party a year ago,” Aaron said, ignoring both the compliment and the attempt at humor, “and all the other bad actors I was with were too scared to fight him, and all Barneyway had was an empty wine bottle in his hand, and he stomped across the sand, right into the middle of the guy’s gang, and the guy backed out, too. Now tell me that ain’t straight?”

  “It’s straight, alright,” Dominic conceded, holding the reins casually with one hand while he fished for a cigarette in his shirt pocket with the hooked forefinger of the other. “But guys change, too, and he had all his buddies with ’im. You said they were bad actors. And he was probably loaded on wine besides. Lots of guys got guts loaded.”

  “But most of the guys—except me and one other who wanted to be a pro fighter, too—were loaded, and we were all hanky of the guy.”

  “That might be so.” Dominic quit pretending to look for a cigarette. “But guys still change.”

  “Tell me how you’re so sure then. Tell me,” Aaron insisted, but a dry rainwater gully in the road gave Dominic an excuse to stall.

  He slowed the horse almost to a stop, and when the wagon dipped forward, he reached behind him with one hand and held it against an empty can to prevent it from sliding, then motioned to Aaron to do the same.

  Aaron knew he was being stalled, and he waited patiently for Dominic to answer after they had crossed the gully. He waited until he could wait no longer and was going to demand an answer when Dominic suddenly shouted, “All the guys in the dairy think he’s pussyyyyyyyyyy!”

  And he slapped the reins against the bony haunches, and yelled the horse into a can-rattling trot, closing the subject, drowning out by sheer noise any attempt of Aaron’s to continue the conversation, and thus forced Aaron to grab the rim of a full can and hang on as he rushed the horse around a curve and out of the ravine.

  II

  The edge of the chapel door was as flat and even as a yardstick which measured off, at an oblique angle, exactly half of Aaron’s peeking head, and he allowed only his pompadour, his left eye, his nose, a corner of his mouth to show beyond the edge until he was satisfied that no one was inside the chapel and slipped past the door and leaned against it.

  He was displeased. For although small cell-like windows of stained glass cast a lead-toned hue throughout the narrow room, there were no shadowy corners that promised sanctity, and the doubts with which he entered were intensified.

  The varnished benches had no backs and were as exposed as the bleachers of a baseball field. The simple Christ upon the cross had the blocky, unexpressive outlines of a carving that had not been carried past a rough-hewn preliminary stage. A red velvet cloth covered a wooden table to one side below the cross, and both the cross and the table sat upon an altar which was as plain and uncluttered as a bare scaffold and fenced by a wooden railing. He could see no other place to kneel, and he considered leaving.

  But it was cool inside, at least, and outside there was the noon heat and that black face, with its dispiriting grin; and he began to walk lightly down the aisle to keep his footsteps from resounding on the pine floor, still hoping for a private place to pray until he reached the railing, although prayer had become a drudgery which only old habits sustained.

  He needed the familiar atmosphere of a Catholic church now. He was certain of that. He needed its somber, penitent interior. He needed the stylized agony of a Christ at fourteen stations of the Cross, offering fourteen separate spaces in whic
h to pray. He needed that old dusty sadness, as if sifted by stained glass, which made the plaster statues seem as hallowed as solid marble.

  He stepped to one side—for there was a gap in the railing before the cross—looked about and behind him in a final check, still hoping to spot some special praying nook or an overlooked confessional booth, but saw only walls as bare and unconcealing as those of any army barracks.

  He genuflected: knocked his kneecap once, softly, on the floor, and knelt at the railing, only to hear the rattle of the garbage cans all over again, and he leaned against a full one and braced his foot against the side plank of the wagon as they trotted around the curve, and Dominic’s mouthful of contemptuous teeth dragged out the ending of that terrible word: “Pussyyyyyyyyyyy!”

  He crossed himself and bowed his head and tried to begin praying, hoping to get some relief from the tormenting problem through the performance of a dutiful act, hoping that the sacrifice involved in forcing himself to perform the act would bring such satisfaction that a spirit of sanctified grace would settle upon him and he would have no problems of any kind. But no prayers came. He felt as if he were kneeling down in a courtroom. The chapel was constructed and furnished with the bare efficiency of a jail.

  He pressed his palms tightly together, trying to compress all motion and all thought into the first act of praying, but the cynical dot of Dominic’s beauty mark held his attention; a mark which had punctuated with a decisive period all of his attempts throughout the morning to get Dominic to explain; a mark which had ended Dominic’s warning outside the dining room to be out of the chapel by one o’clock and on time for school; a mark which …

  Aaron’s palms relaxed, the cupped air between them popped with suction, and he let his hands fall, fingers entwined, to the railing, disappointed because he had made the discipline of prayer work in the detention home in spite of the bars, and in spite of … the … Prayer seemed so useless now, but without it …? without it …?